If you’ve been a League of Legends player who constantly grinds the solo queue ladder, chances are you have met a troublesome mid lane Taric and jungler Master Yi duo, employing the infamous “gold funnel strategy.”

The general consensus is that it’s terrible to play against, because the Yi just stomps everyone in the lategame. Certainly you must have felt the same if you tend to run against this menacing duo in your ranked series.

However, that statement is a very broad take on the matter, without giving recognition to the nuances and structure that the funnel strategy is built upon. Today, let’s turn that anger and frustration into an educated argument on why the funnel strategy is unhealthy and unloved by many players. Read on for my take on the matter.

What is the funnel strategy?

There have been variations of the funnel strategy since its first appearance around 2018, but funnel strategy heavily roots back to the following tenets:

  1. A carry jungler (e.g. Master Yi) and a dedicated support to play at the mid lane (e.g. Taric) are core to the strategy.
  2. The mid support will funnel/direct gold and XP resources towards the jungler, giving him an advantage he would otherwise not have if he played normally
  3. The team’s win condition now lies at the carry jungler as he scales insanely towards the late game, meaning his teammates will need to play around him

However, it’s not a guaranteed winning playstyle because like other coordinated team compositions, external factors—such as the enemy team—cannot be manipulated by the acting team. To make the points consistent, assume from this point on that this strategy is a guaranteed win.

The reason why it wins so much though? If you were to choose between five level 14 champions with equally divided resources and a single level 18 item-locked carry at 25 minutes, you are most likely going to win with the standalone carry that can singlehandedly tear down the enemy tank and carry in the blink of an eye.

Another reason for why this strategy wins is the lack of glaring weaknesses. The funneling team may have an unfed AD carry and lack a source of magic damage, but does it matter if a Master Yi just Alpha Strikes into your team’s carry and picks him in a snap.

Taric as a solo laner is not perfect, but it’s far from ineffective due to his kit consisting of an attack speed steroid, a stun, a heal, and a shield. He may not have a decent waveclear without a support item, but that’s not the purpose of running Taric solo anyway.

Riot’s Responses to Funneling

Of course, Riot is always there to listen and patch the game for any troubling developments in the game.

This Season 10, they have become vocal regarding the funnel problem and have taken steps to address this unhealthy gameplay pattern in patches 10.3 and 10.8.

In 10.3, they made the minion gold penalty for junglers who have gained gold out of minions than the jungle camps by reducing 13 less gold from minions. For context, melee minions grant 21 gold, caster/ranged minions grant 14 gold, and siege/cannon minions grant 60 to 90 gold, scaling through time.

In 10.8, they lowered the percent trigger from more than 50% from monsters to more than 40%, which makes it easier to trigger. Furthermore, they set the penalty removal from 14 minutes to 20 minutes, meaning for the entire laning phase and a bit longer, junglers are penalized for taking too much minion farm.

In the same patch, their notes on the subject noted that:

“Our attempts at reducing the effectiveness of funnel have notably cut the playrate of the strategy, but it’s still proving to be a successful one for those who continue to do it. We want to see if modifying our current levers work to further curb pairings like Master Yi and Taric’s success.”

There has not been much talk ever since, but their words signify that the strategy is still alive and active, and they’re watching out for it.

If it’s a coordinated strategy, why do people in a team-based game hate it?

The short answer, as mentioned earlier, is that it’s not fun to play against.

The long answer? It disrespects the many foundations and principles in the game which defines the genre of multiplayer online battle arenas (or MOBAs.)

League of Legends prides itself in emphasizing micro plays where laners are always battling to gain an advantage over the other. The principles that go along with this philosophy are basic fundamentals like trading, positioning, farming minions, and wave manipulation.

Let’s take mid lane for an example. If I play Annie against an AD assassin like Zed, I always have to look to use my range advantage without putting myself in a position where Zed can favorably damage me. That involves playing around the wave and making sure I can establish a gank setup.

If I play Annie against a funnel strategy, and my matchup is a Taric, one thing is clear: Taric will not attempt to trade, nor take some farm. He will most likely shove the wave with his execute support item when his carry jungler comes to take the minions and then try to roam. The early game, therefore, is monotonous and it would just be a farming simulator.

From the perspective of an ally in the team of the funnel duo, this means that the duo’s allies need to abandon whatever their gameplan is and support the carry jungler and keep him from being eliminated. Even if you’re the AD carry, your new job becomes to protect the carry, or end up losing the game.

Concluding Thoughts

The biggest question now looms us: will the funnel strategy ever die?

My personal take is that it will not completely die out, but may just phase into a state of being unviable where playing a proper team composition is hypothetically more effective. However, with only a few standout picks and even fewer above average picks, it’s hard to create a optimal team composition with little weaknesses.

Rather than further nerfing the strategy, maybe a fresher take on this is to buff the individual lanes’ agency and promote diversity in teamfight-oriented compositions. Lately, we’ve seen Riot do the former by buffing top lane, and soon the marksman role and mid lane are receiving buffs and nerfs respectively.

Do you think funneling will finally stop this season? Are you a funnel fanatic yourself and don’t want the strategy to be nerfed any more? Share your thoughts!